


Stealing What Little I Can

by the_rck



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Ancestral Memory, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Precognition, Superpowers, Worldbuilding, ruthlessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 05:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13563780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Villains killing inconvenient heroes was only theater. Villains killing inconvenient villains wasn’t even that. A few of those inconvenient villains, the better known, the less powerful, rotted in prisons so that the heroes could stay heroes.So that the normals wouldn’t notice how broken the system was.Which left Warren’s mother looking at supers who hadn’t finished school and sidekicks of all ages.Warren wasn’t looking becausehethought everything had to burn. He really wasn’t.Except that, late at night when he ought to have been sleeping, he knew he totally was. Understanding that was safe enough then. Not at other times, but he could admit it then.Having picked Gwen was always going to be on Warren, but she was the only possibility with the right combination of recklessness, power, and cunning and-- above everything else-- the right timing. Gwen was there. Warren was there.Gwen was never going to see the real future coming.





	Stealing What Little I Can

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Franny Choi's "Quarantine."
> 
> This is another one of those stories that was meant to be short and dashed off in a day or two and, well... It grew. There was a lot of me stopping at the realization that something I wanted in the story couldn't happen without this other thing that needed a whole row of falling dominoes. 
> 
> Many, many thanks to Elizabeth_Culmer for beta reading and brainstorming and hand holding.

Here is what I Remember. This is the truth as my ancestors knew it, the truth as I would never give it to the _Minrethdreh_ Council or to anyone but you.

The first thing to understand is that the people who led us to this world weren’t actually trying to make anything _better_. They were mostly _minrethdreh_ \-- hero track families going back generations-- and _denrethdreh_ \-- sidekick track families going back generations or the children of _minrethdreh_ who never came into major powers-- trying to escape changes back on Vilnreth that would have made things better for everyone but taken some of their power. Not their superpowers but the power they had in other ways.

The hero/sidekick/normal split had other names before, but it existed even on Vilnreth. Anyone who tells you different is either lying or ignorant. 

At that point, someone born to the _minrethdreh_ could do anything at all as long as it didn’t inconvenience another member of the _minrethdreh_. If it did, well… Retaliation for retaliation amused them even if the ‘lower orders’ died.

We brought all of those problems through the gate with us and then mixed them with the ones we found here. I’m not sure whether to call it lucky or unlucky that it took three hundred years to get as bad as it is now.

I suppose that depends on when you were born. The poison was always going to kill some of us. Eventually.

Our bad luck that it’s now. Our shame that we let it go this long. Our burden that we need a Seer.

*****

No matter what people thought, Warren wasn’t, by nature, a villain. They were right, though, that he also wasn’t hero material. Standing out in front with a target on his chest didn’t appeal at all. He wouldn’t have bothered with Sky High if there had been a way to avoid it, but he was documented. He couldn’t just disappear.

He wasn’t even sure how old he’d been when he realized that the social workers checking up on him and his mother were trying to talk her into-- bribe her into-- marrying and ‘moving somewhere safer’ or, at the very least, having more children and letting the Council support her in raising them.

It took him a year or two to understand that the reason she kept saying ‘no’ over and over and over was fear for him.

“The Council is always going to watch us,” his mother told him one day while they were at the park, having a picnic. “As long as they’re looking at me, they’re not looking at you.” She ate an apple instead of explaining, and Warren waited because he knew there was more. “It’s hard to keep secrets from someone who lives with you,” she said at last, “and children have trouble keeping secrets at all. Right now… If the Council stops looking at me, they might look at you. That… would not be safe.”

They spent some time on the swings, and Warren didn’t tell his mother that he was getting too old for going to the park with his mother instead of his friends. Not that he had many friends. Too many parents knew who his father was.

As they walked home, his mother said, “The Council thinks that it’s all because your father hurt me. Let them think that. He did a lot of terrible things, but he never hurt me. He never hurt you, either. He never argued with that charge, though, because it meant you and I would be safe. Safer.”

Warren was pretty sure there was a lot more to it than that, but he also thought that he didn’t want to know what it meant.

He didn’t quite let himself think that knowing might be dangerous, but he didn’t ask her for more, not until after, when he actually had to know.

*****

I remember, and maybe some of your children or your children’s children will Remember. Your father loved you and was gentle with both of us. He was a monster in a lot of other ways. He actually did most of the things they accused him of. 

I was young and stupid, only seventeen. I thought he was handsome and romantic. I only realized what I’d chosen in him when I began to Remember, when not-me and not-him people started to feel real.

At that point, there was-- was going to be-- you. You changed everything.

He and I could both count days. He and I both knew that, the longer I stayed, the longer he remained an active villain, the less likely it was that the Council would do more than glance at you to see if you took after him. Better they worry about you being powerful and willful than that they notice the real risk.

He knew why I stayed, that it wasn’t for love of him. He could have abandoned us. He could have used you to buy a seat on the Council. Wanting a Council seat had been one of his reasons for courting me to begin with. He was _surethdreh_ , a major power out of nowhere. I was _minrethdreh_ from a Rememberer line and… impressionable. If I hadn’t started to Remember, it likely would have worked.

He could have, and he didn’t. He went down fighting so they’d keep looking at him. He’s kept our secret through all these years in prison, and it’s not because he believes in the old ways or the old Gods. He thinks all of that is so much horse shit. It’s for you.

Not even for you as Seer. Just for you as you.

I still love that much about him.

Those are things for you and me and him to know. No one else needs to.

*****

Warren ended up with time-wasting Sky High classes, his job, and the real academic curriculum that his mother assigned him. 

“Sky High only teaches what the government and the Council want you to know,” she told him. “Not much history, just enough to make you all want to be supers with ambitions to be _minrethdreh_. Some science. A lot about performing and not so much about communicating. A lot about punching things and pretty much nothing about how the world works without that.” 

So she worked with him on mathematics and on Earth history. She gave him a grounding in the scientific method and how to recognize bullshit science. She spent a lot of time on how combustion worked and on what intense heat could and couldn’t do. She apologized for not teaching him more about Vilnreth, its history and culture. “We simply don’t have time while you’re still in school. That’s all important, too, but it’s three centuries in the past.”

She also gave him assignments that had nothing to do with academics. “You need to know people,” she told him, “without them knowing you. If they know you, they’ll find weaknesses.”

He wondered a little why she expected people knowing his weaknesses to be a problem, but he knew he didn’t need to know. He put it on the stack of ideas that he’d shunted aside to be taken out when it was actually safe to look at them.

He never wondered how he’d know when it was safe. He never considered that maybe that wasn’t something that everyone did.

So he gave his mother an essay a week on his analysis of someone at the school. He’d started with the teachers because there was more publicly available information about them and because his mother had met most of them and knew what questions to ask to make Warren see the things that weren’t obvious. Moving on to students was harder because so much of who they could be was still to be decided.

Gwen Grayson was wrong a dozen different ways when Warren started looking at her, so he kept digging, kept watching her. He couldn’t find a record of her birth which wasn’t entirely odd for the super community, but her father was documented, a sidekick who had more or less vanished after finishing school only to reappear years later with a baby girl. 

Gwen knew too much. She knew that Warren’s father and mother had actually married, less than a year out of school, on a November Saturday. The day she mentioned that had been the first time she had ever spoken to Warren, and he was almost certain that, at that point, it had been more about showing other people that she was kind than about connecting with Warren. 

Warren thought that Gwen hadn’t noticed him watching her or, at least, hadn’t noticed that his attention carried any freight but teenage horniness. Gwen liked the power of that sort of attention, and she got it from a lot of students, older and younger both.

Warren had pretended that the fact of the wedding was a thing that everyone knew, and no one else who heard had been willing to admit they hadn’t known. Warren waited until summer break before he asked his mother who had been there, who might have found out after. It was another thing he was certain would be dangerous to know, so he put the question aside until he could consider it with fewer people watching.

His mother’s answer didn’t help solve the mystery.

Gwen made occasional very dated pop culture references, just dropping them in the midst of present day references as if she didn’t realize her cronies wouldn’t recognize them. Once in a while, she caught herself doing it and looked very angry for just the merest moment.

No one else seemed to notice it as anything but a sign that Gwen’s father made her watch his shows and listen to his music. Warren knew that if that were the explanation, she wouldn’t have looked so angry.

When Gwen looked angry, Warren couldn’t avoid knowing that she was dangerous. Gwen Grayson wasn’t just an abstract puzzle. She had sharp edges and a deeply poisonous rage that was going to kill people eventually.

Just not as many as--

Warren put that knowledge aside until he needed it.

Gwen’s father’s power of record was an ability to go back in time roughly four seconds. At a time. It stacked until he burned through his body’s ability to keep going. That wasn’t a power Warren would have put into the sidekick category, but someone had, so nobody had investigated when the guy turned up as a supermarket manager. Sidekicks often ended up in very ordinary jobs after a few years in the field. Many never worked in the field at all.

Never mind that he’d looked gaunt and unhealthy, as if he were recovering from a very long illness that had made him lose a lot of weight very rapidly.

Being a sidekick without family connections usually sucked worse than being Warren Peace, son of Barron Battle, but it had given Laurence Grayson and his daughter years of anonymity. 

The best most sidekicks without family connections could hope for was to drop off the radar and pass for normals. Then their kids might avoid being documented as having powers and be able to go to real schools. Which kind of begged the question-- Why was Gwen Grayson at Sky High? A Technopath could absolutely pass for normal and would be likely to thrive that way.

As to Warren, he, with a hero track power and a Rememberer bloodline, had value to the Council. Because of his father, they weren’t ever going to give him anything he didn’t take, but because of his mother, he was safe as long as he kept his head down.

Not that he was going to because--

He put that aside for later.

No one was supposed to notice that hero track and sidekick track were both traps that funneled people to where the Council and the government needed them to be. Hero track people might miss it, but most sidekicks saw it eventually, and the knowledge broke a lot of them. 

The Council told them they were better than normals. Better apparently meant less access to education, less freedom to travel, more limits on marriage and employment, and a greater likelihood of disappearing in the night if they said the wrong things. The Council gave them each a stipend. That stipend alone wouldn’t have paid for even as much as Warren and his mother had, but it got bigger if someone had children-- even one-- with powers, minor or major.

That wasn’t-- officially, legally-- how it was supposed to work. It wasn’t how normals lived or how normals thought supers lived. Normals had to think that being a super was a good thing, or they’d never tell anyone when their children turned up with powers that could be concealed.

Some sidekicks, a very few, might find a creative use for their small abilities that, while it didn’t change their classification, changed their status in the eyes of the Council and made them valuable, made them, as Warren’s mother said, honorary _denrethdreh_. Beyond that creativity, the only way for a sidekick without family connections to improve their life was by grabbing onto someone with higher status.

The vanishing for years part of Gwen’s father’s history suggested he had grabbed onto someone, hero or villain, but it could have been anyone. That neither he nor Gwen ever said who it had been had to mean something.

Gwen was a Technopath, one of great power. The identity of her mother should be of immense interest to various record keeping agencies, if only to know who to encourage or discourage in courting her-- rebuilding bloodlines based on Remembered fragments and seeing what major powers turned up where was an open goal of the Council-- but not one of them knew. 

Warren had his mother check, too, just to be sure; she had better resources than he did and more practice at decoding cryptic comments. If Warren’s mother used her status as a Rememberer, she could access many records just for the value of one of her descendants being able to Remember what she had seen. Doing that for things the Council wanted to back up actually paid for the crappy apartment they lived in.

Warren and his mother didn’t get a stipend. The Council wanted his mother to have reasons to choose to have more children. They weren’t quite so far gone as to try to force a Rememberer that way. Not yet. But that was mainly because Rememberers could omit information or even outright lie and because a Rememberer had to understand what they were trying to pull from their ancestors’ lives. Understanding what they found was part of Remembering. Finding the right moment in hundreds and hundreds of lives required skill.

None of the monitoring agencies Warren’s mother had access to considered Gwen Grayson a potential villain. She was cheerful, eager to please her teachers, and, apparently, ‘vulnerable to peer pressure.’

Warren thought they were watching a different girl than he was.

Gwen did everything to fit in but only because it helped her locate the followers in every group. It helped her locate the people who wanted to be inside, weren’t yet, and would return loyalty for the help.

Warren thought that Gwen already knew the things Warren was still learning about the teachers and the older students. She paid much less attention to the younger students than she did to the older ones, so she didn’t pay much attention Warren until his second year.

She’d noticed him before that. She just hadn’t studied him.

He didn’t-- couldn’t-- look directly at why he thought her studying him meant something was going to happen.

Warren gave her sullenness and rage and power. Two handles she could grab if she chose and a reason she might want to. Being stuck at the same school with her meant he needed to know what she was planning before she hit them all with it.

He hoped she’d do it soon because, if she was waiting until after she graduated, that would actually be something he’d have to look at directly, something he’d have to risk himself for. It would mean that she had thought things through and could be deliberately dangerous in a completely different way than he needed her to be.

Gwen Grayson would be a horror of a dictator no matter when she started, but her not waiting would mean that she understood nothing at all about what might happen in the long term. It would make her usable and, eventually, disposable.

If she moved while she was still at Sky High, it would mean that she didn’t realize the normals could be a factor. It would mean that she’d ignore them just long enough--

Warren put that thought aside.

Warren hadn’t quite wanted to admit what he knew-- His mother had been using him to scope out candidates for-- For everything that Gwen Grayson might do. There wasn’t anyone currently active who could and would do it, not even among the villains. The most powerful of them had their seats on the Council and made sure to co-opt obvious potential threats and to smash anyone who surprised them.

Villains killing inconvenient heroes was only theater. Villains killing inconvenient villains wasn’t even that. A few of those inconvenient villains, the better known, the less powerful, rotted in prisons so that the heroes could stay heroes.

So that the normals wouldn’t notice how broken the system was.

Which left Warren’s mother looking at supers who hadn’t finished school and sidekicks of all ages.

Warren wasn’t looking because _he_ thought everything had to burn. He really wasn’t.

Except that, late at night when he ought to have been sleeping, he knew he totally was. Understanding that was safe enough then. Not at other times, but he could admit it then.

Having picked Gwen was always going to be on Warren, but she was the only possibility with the right combination of recklessness, power, and cunning and-- above everything else-- the right timing. Gwen was there. Warren was there.

Gwen was never going to see the real future coming.

******

Here is what I Remember. This is the truth as my ancestors knew it, the truth as I give it to you.

Not all of us joined the Flight willingly. The only Rememberer was kidnapped. He was Alnier’s brother. He let us Remember that fact and that they used him as a hostage. He chose to have his name Forgotten.

He chose to have a lot of things Forgotten. I don’t know if he decided or if Alnier told him which things to Forget. He didn’t let us Remember whether or not his sister set him up as a sacrifice, whether or not she gave him a choice. A lot of what I Remember from him is unanchored words that may or may not be true.

All of the current Rememberers descend from Alnier’s brother and are charged by his will to seek change and to protect the next Seer, the one who’ll have to fix the mess. If we could change enough to avoid needing a Seer, he told us, the Gods would smile. If not, one of his descendants would bear a Seer, and the rest would follow. Alnier promised him that.

The last Seer started the Revolution which lead to the Terror which lead to the Flight which led to the Vilnrethdreh scattered across the Earth. Alnier, the last Seer and our aunt so very many times removed, sabotaged our travel and kicked most of her problems three centuries down the road to be taken care of by the next Seer, the one here, now. Maybe she knew what he’ll have to do. Maybe she didn’t care.

She was kind of an asshole that way.

*****

Outside of her role as a Rememberer, Laurel Peace wasn’t welcome in most hero communities or in most villain communities, not after Barron Battle. The stories about what had happened were many and muddled enough that everyone was sure she’d done _something_. She never explained.

Warren was old enough, now, to understand that he’d only been allowed to stay with his mother because he, himself, might turn out to be a Rememberer. He didn’t think he was; he’d never so much as dreamed of a different world. If he listed his ancestors, it would be from having memorized the names rather than from touching their experiences inside him.

There were currently only ten known Rememberers on Earth, all from the same line. Everyone who knew that their ancestors-- some of them at least-- had come from another world mourned the lost history, the lost knowledge, the lost culture, but there was no way to retrieve it short of figuring out how to build a gate back to Vilnreth. None of the people who built the gate from Vilnreth to Earth had survived to pass the information on.

All the known Rememberers had come to that power late, so maybe Warren would, too. If he hadn’t by the time he turned thirty, he probably wouldn’t ever. Not having done it by age fifteen, well… That didn’t rule it out at all. There was only one Rememberer known to have come to her powers that early, and she had died at least a century before their people fled Vilnreth.

But Warren was almost certain he’d know if he was going to be a Rememberer. He never admitted it out loud because it was dangerous. If he wasn’t a Rememberer, he might be-- He wasn’t. His mother would have told him.

Maybe he’d have kids who would be Rememberers. That seemed more possible than that he would be and was still a lever to keep himself alive if he ever had to face the Council, if everything with Gwen went utterly sideways.

Things would go to hell, inevitably, but Warren was pretty sure he was already past the point when his actions might lead to him facing the Council.

And that was dangerous, so he put the thought aside until it wouldn’t be any more.

Warren’s mother still had friends on the fringes, mostly retired sidekicks but also some undocumented folks and those trained as sidekicks who hadn’t bothered attaching themselves to a hero or villain. Or who simply didn’t have the right family connections for doing it. Funny how things were always better for people with the right relatives.

There weren’t many solid ways into the schools-- not the schools for hero class powers, anyway. Not many schools integrated heroes and sidekicks even to the extent that Sky High did. Most sidekicks went to schools that were half ‘hero support’ training and half practical life skills. Sidekicks probably would need to know how to balance a checkbook.

Heroes and villains could make other people do that for them.

*****

Here is what I Remember. This is the truth as my ancestors knew it, the truth as I would share it with anyone who might need it.

The way things are now is a kludged together system with specific people trying to keep power in the face of upstarts with the wrong parents, in face of normals looking for ways to take control, in the face of changing technology. We've got a tug-of-war between the _Minrethdreh_ Council and the governments of the world, with the _denrethdreh_ within those governments holding the balance so that it doesn’t break the wrong way.

For certain definitions of ‘wrong.’ 

The _denrethdreh_ in the governments have to know that they have more power now than they would if the balance tips either way.

I'm pretty sure that, at this point, the Council has no interest in recreating Vilnreth. It doesn't so much matter. They're just crushing us in different ways now. More bureaucracy, more indoctrination, more economic rewards and penalties, and many different sorts of death for disobedience.

The Council accepting Technopaths as major powers and adopting more and more technological means of record keeping and surveillance are both signs that someone there-- possibly one person, possibly many-- has realized how those tools can raise and shore up the walls, can tighten the leash. By the time most people-- heroes, villains, sidekicks, or normals-- notice, it will be too late.

Big Brother is already looking in our windows.

*****

At any rate, Gwen hadn’t approached Warren directly. The first attempt had been Lash, who used the fact that their fathers were both in the same prison in an attempt to build rapport. He wasn’t even vaguely subtle. He also tried twice more after Warren burned his clothing down to his boxers.

Then Lash vanished for three days. The only change after he came back was that, when he looked at Gwen, he flinched almost imperceptibly.

Warren couldn’t believe that no one else noticed.

The second try was a series of anonymous notes slipped into his locker. He was almost certain they came from Penny. The teachers didn’t much care where her duplicates were as long as her primary was in class. Apparently, they hadn’t realized that there wasn’t a primary.

And Warren wasn’t supposed to have realized that Penny really wasn’t ever going to want a romantic partner. Sex might interest her or might not, but the idea of letting someone who wasn’t herself get emotionally close was never going to fly with her.

Warren read the first note casually, in the hallway where anyone could see.

Penny knew more about subtlety than Lash had. Her words hinted at attraction, hinted at wanting to take risks, hinted at thinking he was smarter and more powerful than most people realized.

Warren noted that she hadn’t used a single word longer than two syllables. He tucked the note into his pocket as if it were actually something he wanted to keep, as if he might believe what it said. The second note, he put in his pocket before opening it. Then he went somewhere to open it unobserved.

Well, unobserved as far as he was supposed to know.

The second note was more specific about wanting to meet him. He really hoped that she thought he was smart enough to understand that the part about ‘setting each other’s bodies on fire’ was metaphorical. If she didn’t… He had no actual intention of setting a person on fire, not even if she was willing to sacrifice one of her selves for it. Any sort of proof that he’d done that would be potent blackmail material, and he didn’t see an advantage giving Gwen that sort of lever.

But he really didn’t think Penny would do that. She didn’t like Gwen that much, and she hadn’t realized yet that Gwen was terrifying. Penny thought what had happened to Lash was funny.

How was it that everyone but Warren and Gwen was so very, very naive?

Warren didn’t even really think about whether or not he wanted Gwen to succeed. That was irrelevant next to the question of whether or not she could which, in turn, was much less important than the question of whether or not she could be manipulated and controlled while she tore down everything that Warren needed out of the way.

That Warren’s mother needed out of the way. He was following her plan wasn’t he? 

He was pretty sure he shouldn’t look at that part too closely.

Warren knew that Gwen could be manipulated. He also suspected that pulling her strings would be extremely challenging. Possible but challenging.

So, eventually, she’d have to go down.

Warren and Penny met twice before Penny brought him to Gwen’s house. The making out with Penny part hadn’t been terrible because Warren did find her physically attractive and because Warren was fifteen. His body found anything that might be heading toward sex really, really interesting. That was enough to let him stop wondering if he was going to have to kill Penny eventually.

Maybe Penny would figure out the consequences of getting in deep with Gwen and bail. Maybe. Warren was pretty sure it was already too late for Penny, so he put that thought aside and kissed her.

Gwen was gracious and welcoming, but suggested not meeting anywhere else because Penny’s parents might disapprove.

Warren didn’t think he had to pretend not to get that part, but he did sulk a little.

Which gave Gwen an opening to ask about what he wanted.

Warren had thought about that one. Most of the options were traps. Saying he wanted his mother safe gave Gwen a hostage. Saying he wanted his father free would lead to, well, his father free. Saying he wanted to restore the glory of the old Centauri Republic would be vastly out of character, and Gwen might actually recognize the allusion. He didn’t think she’d like being Mr. Morden, not given what it said about Warren’s opinion of her.

Warren really didn’t want to find out what she’d done to Lash.

So he went for something Gwen couldn’t give him. “I want to be a Rememberer like my mother so people have to respect me.”

Gwen almost frowned.

Penny didn’t even look up from doing her nails.

Warren pretended not to notice either response. “That I maybe could be got me into Sky High.” He made himself look angry. “I work a shithole job in a restaurant filled with _normals_.” He twisted the word the way so many people did in private, the way no one was supposed to where anyone official could hear. “I don’t want to be either of my parents.” He met Gwen’s eyes and let her see a little fire in his.

“I’ve got ideas about that part,” Gwen said.

Warren let himself smile. “Tell me how I can help.”

*****

Here is what I Remember. This is the truth as my ancestors knew it, the truth as I would never give it to the _Minrethdreh_ Council or to anyone but you.

I don’t know what happened on Vilnreth after we left. I can’t Remember unless one of my ancestors was there. I hope Alnier was right that getting rid of our ancestors would help. I hope that the sacrifice of all of us who didn’t want to leave, all of us who died from ending up alone and without supplies, was worthwhile.

That Alnier decided to scatter us across the planet is why power turns up in surprising places. Our ancestors interbred with Earth normals. I don’t know if the being able to part was-- That’s something I can’t Remember. We might not have been remotely human-- not physically-- before we went through the gate. Now, we’re not different enough from those native to Earth for it to matter. 

And many things about our powers don't quite work the same. Not even Remembering.

******

Scaring the shit out the Commander’s son wasn’t something that Warren would have thought to do without Gwen’s prompting. He didn’t have any interest in giving the Commander even that much importance, so he hadn’t bothered to learn the kid’s name, just felt a little bad for him having to tell his father that he was a sidekick. Warren hadn’t felt bad about the blow to the Commander’s pride at all.

The Commander was the reason Warren had only seen his father four times in the last ten years. The Commander had also argued that Warren shouldn’t be allowed to stay with his mother, that she couldn’t be trusted.

Warren supposed that, from the Council’s point of view, the Commander had been right. Somehow, that didn’t make Warren any less pissed about it.

But no one got to choose their parents. Warren knew, better than anyone, that the child was not the father, not the mother.

“It’s an experiment,” Gwen had told Warren. “Maybe, if he’s terrified, he’ll manifest powers.” She’d smiled brightly at Warren as if it were all something kind and altruistic on her part.

Warren hadn’t bothered pretending that he believed that. He did, however, pretend that he thought it was something petty and mean rather than something Gwen actually needed.

Warren was a little surprised when the fight in the cafeteria ended with Will Stronghold manifesting powers-- rather than having had his clothing burned off-- because Warren had been pretty sure powers didn’t work that way. There’d be a lot of throwing disappointing kids out of windows to see if they bounced if powers could reliably be triggered that way.

He wasn’t at all surprised when Gwen started flirting with Will and hanging out with him. He also wasn’t surprised that Gwen asked for a few other small favors. She was heading for big ones. He knew that. He suspected that she knew that he knew.

He was trying to think of an easy way to disentangle himself from Penny when Layla Williams caught his attention. She was pretty enough, and the fact that she was using him entirely to get at Will wasn’t, Warren suspected, something Gwen would expect him to understand. Even if Gwen did, she might believe that Warren was interested enough in Layla to think that he could get past her crush on Will.

If Gwen believed it, she’d see Layla as something else she might be able to give to Warren.

Layla and her sidekick friends sticking to Warren made talking with Gwen harder, but it gave Warren a plan for something longer term that he thought Gwen wouldn’t see coming. Gwen despised sidekicks even more than she did normals or the teachers or… Well, anyone who wasn’t immediately useful to her.

Must make evenings at home with her father really fun.

Warren’s mother would be pissed as hell when everything blew up, but it wasn’t like she had an actual plan herself. She kept saying, “Not yet. Give it a few more years.” 

Warren’s instincts said that they didn’t have a few more years.

As far as Warren could tell, she and her friends and their mentors had been looking for a perfect way to force political change for decades, something with no bloodshed, no oppression, no collateral damage. Just friends and everyone meaning well and eternal happiness. 

Most of what Warren knew about involved local politics and legislative initiatives. The rest was all helping people pass as normals. He only realized much later that his mother had deliberately avoided anything more potentially dangerous. Not all of her friends had, and some of them were dead. The world hadn’t noticed. The world hadn’t changed.

Warren was pretty sure nothing would get better without things getting ugly along the way. Extremely ugly.

If protests and legislation could have done the job, then Warren was steering them all into Hell for nothing.

But getting rid of Gwen would only stop _her_ plan. Someone else would come along later, someone who didn’t have Warren standing next to them. He hadn’t missed the fact that almost none of his mother’s allies were in positions to become anything but minor minions for the future Evil Overlord.

Next time, Warren might not be in the right place, either. Gambling that he could work around Gwen seemed safer than continuing to wait for a miracle.

*****

Here is what I Remember. This is the truth as my ancestors knew it, the truth as I would never give it to the _Minrethdreh_ Council or to anyone but you.

The big disappointment our ancestors met on Earth was the fact that it was already inhabited. The bigger problem was that they expected to arrive all in the same place. Instead, they were scattered in small groups, often no more than a handful of them in one place, across the continents. They had almost none of the supplies they’d expected to have. Those unfortunate enough to end up in Antarctica mostly died. Alneir-- the person who sabotaged the gate-- ensured that people arrived on land but didn’t consider climate.

No Seer foresees everything, not even everything that’s fixed and certain.

She thought about dumping everyone in the oceans, but the people who’d have survived that would have been the _minrethdreh_ most likely to be able to set themselves up as gods. With the others surviving, those people were… distracted by trying to keep their families and minions alive. Also, it meant they already had minions.

And an unachievable goal-- finding a way to reunite all of those who’d ended up on Earth. That goal is what made the Council.

*****

Warren was actually glad that Will decided not to attend Homecoming. That decision simplified things considerably and made it more likely that Layla and her friends would play along when he stepped in to keep them from getting turned into babies. 

Nothing Warren was willing to do would save Will Stronghold if Gwen got her hands on him.

Gwen had promised him the four sidekicks as a gift. He’d had to hint that two girls were always better than one which made him feel a long way worse than slimy. Then he’d had to point out that keeping Zach and Ethan safe would win him points with Magenta and Layla and so make getting what he wanted easier. He never once used the word ‘hostage.’ 

He might have given Gwen the impression that he liked the sidekicks because they all knew he deserved their respect, just based on the power differential. He might, also, have told her directly that he’d be happy to ‘supervise’ anyone else in that category, anyone she didn’t need to… dispose of for other reasons.

Warren knew Gwen would break her promise the moment they-- or he-- became too inconvenient, but she’d looked at him as if he were solving a vexing problem for her.

Someone had to supervise the people who didn’t matter.

He was pretty sure that Gwen would realize, eventually, that he was empire building, but he was equally sure that she would think he was sitting in a corner, building castles out of Legos and sentiment rather than putting anything together that might challenge her. Somehow she’d missed that superpowers were just tools, and people without powers had a lot of incentive to develop other ways to get what they needed.

Gwen was going to be too busy for a while to realize that sentiment wasn’t part of the Warren she knew.

She was also, as far as Warren could tell once he learned of her plan, blissfully unaware of how much drudgery was involved in raising even a single infant, let alone hundreds. He didn’t think that Penny could make that many duplicates of herself, and he was absolutely certain that, even if she could, she wouldn’t. She had other things in mind for her next few years than formula and diapers.

Warren hadn’t bothered pointing out the logistical issues. He’d just persuaded Gwen to promise that any sidekicks he wanted were his. She’d done it in front of several people who were smart enough to realize that breaking a promise to one of them meant none of them were safe. By the time Gwen was in a position to try to screw Warren over, Warren would have what he needed.

Warren would be the only one with the resources to raise Gwen’s unstoppable army from infancy to the point of being actually useful. Warren was betting that Gwen wouldn’t realize how much power she was giving away when she let Warren deal with all the ‘trivial matters.’ She just knew that managing people was a pain in the ass and was sure that Warren would be easy to manage while he was dealing with all the rest of it.

Gwen wouldn’t stop at Sky High, so she’d have far more babies to deal with all at once than Warren could quite wrap his head around. She hadn’t mentioned being able to keep them in stasis or anything, so apparently she thought they’d just magically feed themselves.

Ignorance on that level might have been amusing if Gwen hadn’t been so dangerous, hadn’t been capable of destroying the world in a fit of pique.

Once all of the other students and graduates were infants, Gwen would have her small group of allies and a horrifying number of screaming babies. Gwen wasn’t quite as ruthless as she thought she was, so Warren was pretty sure the babies would be okay during the time it took for Gwen to remember that she needed to do something about them. Mostly.

And then, she’d remember that Warren needed to be kept busy. Warren gave it until about noon the next day. Gwen had weird ideas about the skills required to keep a lot of people organized, so the person she thought Warren was would be perfect for the task.

Another ten years, and she would be ruthless enough for out and out murder, but she wasn’t yet. She was also smart enough to realize that none of her followers were ready to cross that line. If she actually harmed any of the babies, she’d suddenly be standing alone because the game of being villains had become too real.

Gwen and Warren were the only ones who understood the real consequences part of things.

Warren kind of hated himself for accepting those consequences. He’d back Gwen up to the point when enough set-in-their-ways supers-- heroes and villains both-- and inconveniently placed normals were out of the way. Dead or turned to babies, either would work.

He couldn’t-- 

_Nobody_ could make something new until everything old was gone.

Gwen hadn’t admitted, before her speech at Homecoming, that she’d been turned into a baby by her own device, but all the available facts had pointed that way. That she expected to be able to raise every single baby to be loyal to her seemed to indicate that she didn’t remember much from her first go around.

Just some pop culture references and a lot of unpleasantness about puberty.

All of which made the turned to babies thing not actually better than murder. It looked better, but Warren was the son of a Rememberer. Physical survival wasn’t the same thing as personal survival. Gwen Grayson would never be-- could never be-- Sue Tenney.

But the turned to babies thing could be spun, long term, so that it was unfortunate rather than horrific. Most people didn’t consider how much their experiences made them who they were.

Short term, even if all Warren had was his quartet of sidekicks, his mother, and her allies, they would outnumber Gwen’s people to the point that powers didn’t matter. If Gwen went off script to the point of corpses at Homecoming, Warren could stop her.

The fact that he wasn’t absolutely certain he would made him feel shittier than any of the other things he’d done or still planned to do. Not being absolutely certain was probably code for ‘not going to’ which was a really damned ugly thing to have to face about himself.

That many corpses would get the normals involved sooner, and more people would die of that than if Gwen kept the babies, but… That would still end the way Warren needed it to. Not using Gwen carried a real risk of everything blowing up at a point when he couldn’t shape the explosion or even take advantage after.

There was a reason that the Council focused so heavily on making supers look entertaining and harmless. Most of them couldn’t disappear now, and there were enough people without powers to kill every super on the planet if they were motivated enough. Secret identities would disappear like wet tissue paper once someone in government leaked the listing of documented supers.

Someone would, someday, even without Gwen.

The normals mostly bought into the idea that supers only fought each other and that any child from any family might turn out to have powers. The fact that Warren’s people had ended up scattered across the Earth meant that powers did still turn up unexpectedly. Centuries of intermarriage would do that.

Not being originally from Earth was one of the few secrets Warren’s people had managed to keep. Even most supers didn’t know.

Even the assholes on the Council had given up on the idea that their people were all that different from the people with purely Earth ancestry. The assholes making policy for various governments didn’t care either way as long as the Council didn’t let someone like Gwen-- or Warren-- slip the leash and challenge the accepted order.

Putting Gwen out in front really was the smartest course. If Warren was really lucky, somebody’d poison her before he had to.

Warren hoped that his mother had managed to locate Will and persuade him to cooperate. Will wasn’t a bad person; he was just… so very, very damned naive. Warren hoped he was naive enough not to ask awkward questions afterward about why Warren’s mother used that last evening locating Will, getting him far away from home, and not letting him warn anyone else.

Partly because Warren wasn’t sure. Partly because Warren didn’t want to admit that he knew that Gwen would torture Will.

But mostly because Warren and his mother both knew that Will Stronghold was going to look really good out in front of the faction that finally took Gwen down. Warren wasn’t anything like as bulletproof as Will was, and Will was _minrethdreh_ , too, without the complications of being related to Barron Battle.

The next twenty four hours were certainly going to give Will more than enough reason to want to kill Gwen. He’d probably want to kill Warren, too, but Warren was sure he could find a way to deal with that part.

*****

Here is what I Remember. This is the truth as my ancestors knew it.

It took nearly twenty five years for someone to figure out a way for one small group to be able to locate and to communicate with a few of the other groups. At that point, most of our ancestors who wanted children-- or who wanted sex but lacked a way to prevent children-- had had them with some of the natives of Earth, and that made trekking across continents or braving the ocean-going vessels of the day even less attractive than it might have been.

But that communication and the _minrethdreh_ involved in making it possible created the Council. Our laws, our customs, started as informal and regional suggestions for how to survive dealing with the natives. What they are now, well, that’s about power. Having it, keeping it, passing it on to the right people. Three centuries of people being people will do that.

*****

Coach Boomer sacrificing himself to provide cover while Warren got the four sidekicks out when Royal Pain turned the Homecoming dance into a killing field was more luck than Warren had counted on. At the very least, crawling out through the vent meant not having to watch it all happen. Getting the four of them into a classroom meant he’d have some privacy when he told them what was going on. He was pretty sure they’d react badly to the truth.

A highly edited version of the truth but a hell of a lot more honesty than he could have given them with an audience.

“I like you guys,” he said, “and Gwen-- Royal Pain-- doesn’t think you’re dangerous. Pretend you’re scared of me, and she won’t turn any of you into babies.”

He’d been right about the reacting badly part, and the four of them together were pretty effective at beating his head in because there was only one of him and because he didn’t want to burn them. He wasn’t even sure he could, not with people he liked, not with the damage he’d do. Throwing fireballs was a really terrible power to have when trying not to hurt someone he was fighting.

He really hoped he wasn’t ever going to have to stand there and let Will Stronghold try to beat his head in. Then again, Will probably wouldn’t even notice a fireball until after his clothes were gone.

Ethan was the one to pull back. “Guys--” The others looked at him. “If he wanted to hurt us, he _could_.”

Warren lowered the arms he’d raised to protect his head. He lit up one hand. “I could.” He let the flame go again. “She didn’t tell us what she actually meant to do.” It was more than half a lie, and he could tell by the frowns and narrowed eyes that all four of them guessed. He sighed and gave them a truth. “She thinks I’m only _trying_ to empire build because it hasn’t occurred to her that ‘sidekicks’ are dangerous.” That didn’t get them to relax, so he added, “I’m making shit up as I go, okay? She recruited me before I met any of you, before I met Stronghold even.”

Which made Zach and Layla both frown as they thought about what might happen to Will. Warren was pretty sure that whatever they were imagining was small on the scale of things Gwen might do to the freshman who dumped her.

Magenta didn’t say anything out loud, but her face told Warren that she wasn’t impressed.

Ethan went to stand by the door and peer out. He also didn’t say anything, so Warren assumed no one was coming.

Warren rubbed the back of his head and let himself look sheepish. “And I may have made Gwen think that I’m--” He shook his head. “I may have told her that I think the two of you--” He nodded at Layla and Magenta. “--are hot. Not that you’re not! I mean-- Improvising!”

Ethan glanced back. “Then how did you explain us?” He waved to indicate Zach. “Or did you tell her you’re bi?”

“Ah-- Hostages?” Warren hadn’t meant to make it a question, but Ethan and Magenta both snickered, so he supposed it worked. He looked at Layla. “I asked my mother to try to find Stronghold and talk him into hiding. She-- Gwen-- knows where to find him, and she’s going to make tracking him down high priority. He did dump her...”

Gwen wouldn’t settle for turning Will into a baby.

“If he’d come to the dance--” Layla looked as if Warren had killed her puppy. “If he had, you’d have let her turn him into a baby, wouldn’t you?”

Layla was definitely thinking small on the scale of retribution. Warren just looked at her. He was pretty sure that she wouldn’t believe a lie and would punch him again if he told the truth. “Maybe you can wait to kill me until _after_ we get out of here? She’s planning to blow up the school.”

All four of them stared at him. 

“What? She hates the place. She doesn’t remember much of her first time through, but she does remember that.” He hesitated then added, “My mother can make a shield big enough to protect our apartment building. We need to be there when the rocks fall.”

Layla’s face went hard. “Get me to the ground. _Now_. I can at least stop some of the debris.”

Warren wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but he’d been kind of worried about how many people underneath the school would die. Gwen, of course, saw that as a bonus. Warren was pretty sure that none of her other teenage minions had even considered it.

Gwen was working her way up to ruthlessness. It was a little reassuring to have that much evidence that she wasn’t there yet.

Still, Warren hesitated. “None of you look like you’re actually my prisoners. Can you manage looking scared? Or grateful?” He studied their faces. “Sullen?”

Zach said, “You’re really fucking serious.” He shook his head. “No.” But he didn’t look certain.

Layla was the only one who looked certain.

Warren sighed. “Let’s just get to the ground. You can walk away then. I’ll tell her I got pissed off and dumped you. She thinks I’m a moron anyway.” He was pretty sure all four of them would end up in much worse trouble if he actually let them go, but there wasn’t really a way he could force them to stay once they were on the ground, not one he could live with.

Gwen wasn’t the only one still working on ruthlessness.

Zach said, “Your mother Remembers, doesn’t she?”

Warren wasn’t sure where Zach was going with that, but he nodded because she did.

And his mother hadn’t been nearly as pissed at him as he’d expected her to be when he told her he’d thrown in with Royal Pain. She’d just asked how sure he was and then told him that it wouldn’t be anything like as easy as his instincts were telling him. She’d touched the side of his head and said, “Something like this has to look easy, or you wouldn’t make the right choice.”

Ethan made a sound that was almost a squeak. Then, he said, “So that means--”

“Yeah,” Zach said. He didn’t sound even remotely happy about it, whatever ‘it’ was. He stepped in closer to Layla. “We go. Whatever happens, happens.” He closed his eyes, and his lips started moving without sound coming out.

It took Warren several seconds to realize that Zach was praying.

Ethan nodded.

Magenta looked as confused as Warren felt, but she shrugged. “Whatever. Not like we can stay.” She gave Warren a hard look. “You better not be planning to take advantage.”

Warren wanted to protest that he wasn’t that sort of asshole, but they were burning time.

And, really, he’d already promised. He’d just also already lied more than once. All five of them knew he’d lie again if he thought he had to.

*****

Warren got them five spots on the next bus leaving by growling that he didn’t trust them not to run if he wasn’t with them.

Stitches had wanted to separate them because Warren had been right about Gwen not having thought through the logistics. There weren’t enough adults or teens to make sure the drivers weren’t alone with forty-some screaming babies. The drivers all looked like they were Stitches’ age, so Warren assumed they were people Stitches had recruited, probably also sidekicks.

The relationship between Gwen and Stitches went way, way beyond fucked up. Warren thought it might be in outer space with a very dim and distant dot as the planet of Fucked Up, but if Stitches had been a competent parent or even a balanced human being, Royal Pain would probably be unstoppable. Stitches had thought more about keeping control of Gwen than he had about giving her a strategy that might work in the long term. Stitches being an obsessive asshole was the only reason any of Warren’s ideas might be possible.

Stitches would have to go before Gwen did. Otherwise, he might save her a second time. He was certain to try.

Four seconds, eight seconds, twelve seconds... Warren wasn’t sure how far Stitches could go before his power devoured too much of his body. Four seconds back in time during a fight-- or an assassination-- was an eternity. 

Warren forced the driver of their bus to let the five of them off while they were still very close to the school. He looked over the load of babies and noted, with disbelief, that nobody had bothered to label them. What he said to the driver was, “No offense, dude, but we can find our way to my place.” He used the idea of not knowing which infant was which to fuel an expression of horror. “No way are we sticking around to change diapers.”

Diapers weren’t really that terrible, but a busload of babies needing changing-- It wasn’t going to end.

The bus driver went a little green at the thought, himself, but didn’t argue after Warren started flicking flames from hand to hand.

It was way overdone, but after seeing Royal Pain’s class act, Warren felt that subtle might not work so well. When they were out of sight of the bus, Warren looked at Layla and said, “I hope you really can do something because otherwise we’re all getting pulverized. I don’t think I can manage enough heat to stop rocks.”

And vaporized rock would kill them anyway. He wondered if it would hurt worse.

“How much time do I have?” Layla took several steps away from them and stopped in the middle of someone’s lawn. “Because a park would be better. Somewhere with trees. If we have five minutes, I'll work with this. If we have half an hour, I want a park.” The grass started growing and twining around her ankles.

Warren wondered why the hell she was a sidekick. This didn’t feel like a subtle power.

None of the others looked even vaguely surprised.

Zach looked at Warren. “We keep each other’s secrets.” Zach had kept praying for most of the journey to the ground. He now looked more at peace with the situation than he had before.

Warren wished he had that sort of faith. He shook his head, more in an effort to regain confidence in his ability to guess right than in denial, and tried to remember how many buses still needed loading and estimate how long each would take. “Fifteen to twenty?” He was guessing. 

If he hadn’t seen Layla coming, what else had he missed?

Magenta gave him a look that spoke volumes about her opinion of Warren’s intelligence. “There were twelve buses left to load when we left. What? I pay attention. At five minutes a bus, we’d have an hour, and I don’t think any of them will leave empty. Also, all those seat belts had to be changed to fit the car seats instead of teenagers. Whole different shape. The old configuration puts the buckle right on the baby’s face, and they _weren’t_.” She waved a hand in the direction the bus had gone after dropping them off. “We totally have time for a park if someone knows the neighborhood.”

Layla closed her eyes for several seconds, and the air became electric. She opened her eyes and pointed at the house across the street. “That way. About four blocks. There’s even a pond. I can do good things with duckweed.” She started walking toward the end of the block.

Warren was just relieved that they weren’t going to walk straight through the house. He knew he’d completely lost control of the situation. As he and the others followed Layla, he tried to take comfort in the fact that none of them were currently trying to kill him.

Not that he understood why they weren’t. Zach and Ethan had made the call, and Layla and Magenta had trusted them. Which was the opposite of the way he’d expected it to go, given observed group dynamics.

Everywhere Layla stepped, grass sprouted. Even through concrete.

When Warren looked back as they turned the corner, he saw that the grass was still growing, still getting taller. He considered that and considered the other three. He cleared his throat. “She’s going to need any energy we can get her. Do you know what she can use?” 

What the hell had Coach Boomer been thinking when he assigned Layla to Hero Support? Maybe he’d fallen asleep? Rolled dice for each person in the class? Been attacked by a rabid squirrel and hit the wrong button? Who could guess? It didn’t matter. Warren was never going to get a chance to ask him.

Ethan looked at Warren, sizing him up. “You do solar? Because that’s what she needs. Gatorade would help, but she needs sun.”

Warren winced. “Me doing solar sounds like a terrible idea. Worse than rocks falling on us.”

Ethan shrugged. “If you can match the spectrum without going nova, it might help. Or if one of these houses has sun lamps and a real long extension cord. I don’t think we’ve got time to look.”

Warren shook some of the tension out of his arms and shoulders. “No, but Gatorade might be possible. If I find a decent kitchen, I can do something in that direction.”

Ethan looked at Magenta, and she nodded. “We'll do that part,” he said. “You and Zach go with Layla and see if you can give her anything she can use.”

“Burning holes in people’s houses will make it really obvious that this was us.” Magenta was looking at Warren like he had the IQ of a gnat. Again.

“I don’t glow bright,” Zach said as Magenta and Ethan headed for the nearest house that didn’t have lights on, “but I glow precise.” He sounded very pleased with himself. “Tune to me, and this will work.”

Warren hoped it would. He hoped, too, that Layla actually knew her limits and didn’t kill herself with whatever the hell she was planning. The fact that he could see things growing, behind them, up over the rooftops, gave him some ideas, and the energy was going to have to come from somewhere. Layla didn’t seem like the sort to hold anything back.

On the right ground, Layla might be able to take Royal Pain. Adding surprise might make it a sure thing.

Sky High hadn’t been the right ground. If Layla hadn’t known it, she wouldn’t be with him now.

Warren really hoped that Will Stronghold was going to be around to acknowledge how awesome his friends were. Some groveling wouldn’t be inappropriate.

If Will wasn’t around, those four were going to turn their scary, scary attention on Warren again. He might have saved them, but they hadn’t forgiven him, not by a long shot, because he could have saved a lot of other people.

Not instead. In addition to.

He knew that he’d made the right call, but he was pretty sure none of them were ever going to believe him.

Duckweed turned out to be a tiny plant with a broad leaf. It had no stem that Warren could see and grew on top of a large pond that shrank as Layla made the duckweed grow thousands of times bigger. She used grass to lift it to the treetops and then grew the trees to brace each leaf. She had a long enough reach that Warren couldn’t see the outer edges of the shield she was building.

Warren had no idea how well the whole thing would hold, and he was too busy to think much about it because he was trying to figure out how to make sunlight instead of just fire. The how to do it without incinerating Zach and Layla part was harder than the sunlight part.

Zach kept telling Warren that he was focused too much on the part of the spectrum that people felt as heat. “Also, you don’t want sun surface. You want eight light minutes out. Completely different.”

Warren ground his teeth and stomped hard on irritation at this kid telling him how to use his powers because-- because--

And then it worked.

*****

After the last bit of debris fell, Warren admitted to himself that he’d helped more because helping would make the other four trust him enough for what came next than because it was right. It _was_ right, but he’d already been resigned to deaths on the ground because all of the ways to prevent them, all the ones he’d known about, would break other things that still needed to work.

He hadn’t expected Layla. He should have expected Layla.

Warren was pretty sure that none of them-- including Layla-- were surprised that she passed out pretty much the moment she stopped bracing the shield. 

She still managed to let things go in such a way that the debris on each nearby piece of duckweed rolled gently to the ground. She lost that control about a hundred yards out, but there was at least a chance that no one would die from the remains of the school falling the last thirty feet. There hadn’t been any chance that no one would die from those pieces descending from a mile up.

Warren let Zach and Magenta look after Layla while he looked around and tried to decide if there was any way at all to hide what Layla had done. He knew before he started considering it that concealment wouldn’t be possible, but he still looked. He needed time to think.

Warren hadn’t realized that Ethan was following him until Ethan spoke.

“Sky High didn’t know. She wouldn’t show Coach Boomer her powers, and he got pissed when she called it-- What was it?” Ethan didn’t quite laugh. “The words ‘oppressive’ and ‘artificial’ may have been in there somewhere.”

That fit with what Warren knew of Layla, so he just nodded. Then he asked the question that had been on his mind. “Why? I mean why did you decide to--?” He waved a hand.

“Couple of things,” Ethan answered softly. “First, you didn’t actually have a plan for what to do if we kept fighting.”

Warren hadn’t had, but he didn’t see why it mattered. “I was improvising. I’m still improvising.”

“You _knew_.” Ethan met Warren’s eyes for a moment then turned away to study one of the trees. “No one knows when your mom became a Rememberer, just that she was by the time she split with your dad. Could’ve happened any time between Sky High and then. I bet keeping that vague was a lot easier than lying about your age.”

Warren felt ice in his guts, but he was pretty sure that Ethan wasn’t wrong because it made sense of things Warren hadn’t quite realized were inexplicable. He shook his head in denial anyway. “She’d have told me.”

“Warren, _I_ thought about not telling you, and I don’t actually remember the other times this happened.” Ethan still didn’t turn to look at Warren. “I’ve read about it. My family has... books that shouldn’t exist. Mom’s that into history, and her mother is, too. Their mothers before them. Sometimes, Rememberers will tell them more than they’re supposed to, and we’ve got it all written down. Not so much about the parts right before we got here but a lot about before Alnier. Zach’s family still follows the Gods of Vilnreth. Records of a different sort.”

Which explained Ethan and Zach. At least, it did if Warren accepted Ethan’s thesis. He tried to put that aside, but he couldn’t. He also couldn’t find dismissive words to cover his sudden vulnerability. “I don’t follow any God or Gods,” he said in the hope that that would lead away from him having to face--

The shapes of Warren’s ‘improvisations’ rearranged themselves inside his head. He hated what he saw. “The next twenty or so years are going to _suck_.” He’d have said ‘suck pond water,’ but he actually kind of liked pond water right then. “How did we manage to repeat every mistake we made back Home and then make up some new ones?”

Ethan shrugged then finally turned to meet Warren’s eyes again. “I’m not a Rememberer, and Mom’s kind of not interested in anything after we went through the gates. I didn’t know we had.”

“I’m too young,” Warren said. “All of us are too young.”

“Pretty sure there’s a reason for that.”

Because there was always a reason for anything a Seer did. It might be called ‘necessity,’ it might be called ‘the will of the Gods,’ but there was a reason.

Warren wanted to find something that he could burn. He probably couldn’t even have lit a match right then, but all of the anger he’d never let himself feel before was starting to come through. The things he’d known and hadn’t let himself look at.

Neither of them said anything more. Instead, they went back to the others. Warren carried Layla most of the way to his apartment. None of the other three could manage her weight for very long, and waiting for her to be able to walk… They didn’t have that kind of time.

His apartment would be fine for the rest of the night. After that… Warren would improvise. He wasn’t willing to call it anything else not yet. Probably…

Gwen wouldn’t have thought to copy Sky High’s records before she blew it up. She’d have no idea where Magenta or Ethan lived. She probably hadn’t bothered to remember their names.

Then Warren wondered why he hadn’t thought about her not knowing where Zach lived. He didn’t want to look at that so he simply finished the list by adding that Gwen absolutely did know where Layla lived. Layla’s mother would be high on Gwen’s list of people to hunt tonight.

Layla’d be much safer if her mother was caught and if Will wasn’t.

Layla’s address hadn’t come from Warren, but a hell of a lot of others had. He hadn’t given Gwen everyone he knew how to locate, but the list still included about 60% of the active supers, heroes and villains both, who she hadn’t been able to locate otherwise and a fair number of sidekicks who were… a little too heavily invested in the status quo. Given the accuracy of his other information, Gwen wasn’t going to spot Warren’s ‘mistakes,’ the high profile normals he’d scattered through the list.

Warren had thought that logic dictated which addresses and secrets he revealed, which normals he offered as sacrifices. He’d simply assumed that he’d seen a pattern that would work. He could risk lives on logic.

The other… thing… that Ethan hadn’t exactly said-- Warren really wished he hadn’t come so close to it that Warren couldn’t misunderstand. If it was true-- and Warren suspected it was-- then--

Warren actually didn’t know when his mother had started to Remember. He’d never asked because, if it mattered, she’d have told him. He’d trusted her for that along with everything else.

Except that the Council wouldn’t have let her keep him if she’d started to Remember while she was pregnant, if he might become a Seer. The Council probably wouldn’t have let him live. A Rememberer was valuable. A Seer…

Seers destroyed. They rebuilt after, but they destroyed first because they only happened when nothing else would work.

There hadn't been a Seer-- not on Earth anyway-- during the three centuries since their people arrived on Earth. Or maybe they’d just all failed to produce change. Or maybe all the stories were true.

Laurel Peace could still have other children, and not a single one of them would be a potential Seer. Being able to pass on the potential to be a Rememberer wouldn’t protect a Seer-- a _potential_ Seer-- from the Council.

He made his mind still for the rest of the walk to his apartment.

*****

Here is what I Remember. This is the truth as my ancestors knew it, a portion of the truth that the _Minrethdreh_ Council doesn’t want any of you to know.

Because we were scattered across the planet, the worst of our ancestors didn’t manage to stop the Industrial Revolution-- the members of the Council still came near to war with each other on the subject of trying-- and ended up hiding what they could do. Even an invulnerable and superstrong person can only be in one place at once. There’s a limit to the territory that such a person can terrorize without help from technology or a large organization of other people with powers, major and minor both.

Improving technology solved the crossing the oceans safely part of the Council's problems, though, and eventually made long distance communication trivial. Well, if not trivial, at least explicable without reference to superpowers.

Improving technology also gave normals the means to destroy the rest of us without being destroyed themselves. Every decade, the cost of that war gets lower for them. Don't think the Council doesn't see it. Don't think they aren't planning for it.

Don't ever assume that being on the Council means being stupid. They’d kill each other if they didn’t see shared, basic, interests in survival, but that’s not the same thing. It’s usable in a different way.

The most successful supers during the nineteenth century and early twentieth were the ones who were able to infiltrate existing power structures and who created structures that promised to help the rest of us hide.

The first supers to appear in public were those who came into powers without contact with the larger community. They were noticed, but there weren’t many of them, so they were curiosities or-- if they were unlucky-- research subjects. Most of us didn’t come out of the shadows until after the Second World War. That was… meant well.

At least by some people.

*****

Warren’s mother was waiting in their living room with Will Stronghold who looked like he was just barely holding back from killing the furniture.

Warren could almost hear clicking in his head as several doors into the future quietly closed. “Stronghold,” he said. “Can you take her? She can have my bed. I’m--” He didn’t have to finish because Will took Layla right as Warren’s knees finally gave out on him.

Warren was more surprised that Will hadn’t been the one to knock him over than he was to find himself on the floor. The floor had been inevitable.

Zach sat next to Warren and said, “You used almost as much as she did.”

Warren couldn’t deny it, so instead, he said, “I think I want a terrarium full of duckweed.” He had a vague sense that Ethan and Magenta were helping his mother retrieve food. He made himself focus enough to look at Zach. The other boy looked as exhausted as Warren felt. “I’m pretty sure we can sleep in. Then Mom and Will go to… Ethan’s house. Magenta’s would be safe, too.” Warren closed his eyes. “Not yours. I’m sorry for that.”

Zach’s family was _denrethdreh_ with lineage going at least as far back as the Strongholds did as _minrethdreh_.

Zach didn’t respond in any way that Warren could hear or feel, and Warren didn’t look at him again until several minutes had passed, until Magenta started making both of them eat peanut butter on crackers and then wash those down with more fake Gatorade.

Warren’s brief glance at Zach showed that his eyes were redder than they had been and that his face was a little splotchy. Warren hoped that none of the others would comment. Zach’s grief deserved some privacy.

When Warren had a little more energy, he announced to the room in general, “We’ve got two days before Gw-- Royal Pain expects me to dance attendance. At least, that’s what she said before she started turning people into babies. Pretty sure she’ll want me-- us actually-- before that because she hasn’t thought any of the logistics through.” He stifled a yawn. “Somehow, she’s got the idea I’m better at intimidation than at thinking, and she’s going to assume that people need to be intimidated into dealing with diapers.” 

He bowed his head and let it rest in his hands for several seconds. “She’ll probably send someone looking here tomorrow, Mom. I have to be here, and I’ll need your address book-- the real one-- but you can’t be here. You’re going to have to be somewhere else.” He studied the carpet. “I don’t know why, but you can’t meet her.”

He didn’t say, ‘Please, fix this, Mom.’ He didn’t say, ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Mom?’ He didn’t say, ‘What should we do next?’

He said, instead, “Can you Remember how we got to this?” He knew her well enough to be sure she’d understand that he wasn’t just talking about the seven of them in the dingy two bedroom apartment.

“Will you have time for a story tomorrow? I’m not sure I can manage the CliffsNotes version.” Her expression, the way her eyes studied his face, told Warren that his mother was quite serious.

“You can give it to us a little at a time. It’s… I want to know, but I don’t think it changes anything, so tomorrow, next week, next month. Whatever.” Warren knew that things had barely started. His comment about the next two decades was truer than he wanted it to be.

Warren’s mother came close and put a hand on his head. “Nothing holds forever, but trying to rebuild is never wasted effort.”

Magenta cleared her throat and muttered something that sounded a lot like, “Sunk cost fallacy.”

Warren smiled in response to both comments, but, for a moment, he felt like he was-- like they all were-- being swallowed by something that cared about the wrong things. Everything was broken. That part was true. He looked at Ethan. “I think I liked it better when I was improvising.”

Ethan shrugged, and Warren admitted that Ethan couldn’t change the fact that he’d revealed something that Warren’s own mind had been keeping from him.

Will came out of Warren’s bedroom. “What the hell did you do?”

Warren was pretty sure that not waking Layla was the only reason Will wasn’t yelling. He supposed he should be glad Will had decided to put her first. Even at full strength, Warren couldn’t just stand there and let Will punch him, and Warren was very near done in already. 

Warren looked at Ethan and Magenta and hoped that one of them would explain. It probably-- certainly-- wouldn’t be flattering to Warren, but he didn’t think he could deal with Will’s disbelief if Warren tried to explain.

“Your ex is a supervillain,” Magenta said. “Don’t know how we missed it.” She shrugged. “Good news? Probably nobody’s dead. Bad news? She’s got a ray that turns people into babies.”

Will didn’t look surprised by the supervillain part, but he looked horrified by the baby part.

“Worse news,” Ethan said. “They didn’t bother labeling the babies.”

Will obviously hadn’t been around many babies because that part didn’t seem to register.

“Sky High’s dust,” Magenta said. “Well, for large chunk values of dust. Oh, and yeah, Warren’s a villain, too. More or less.” She wobbled a hand back and forth.

Will looked from Magenta to Warren to Warren’s mother, and Warren could almost see him trying to figure out how he was supposed to behave in front of a villain’s mother. Etiquette had to be easier than reality. Etiquette had rules.

“That’s a little unfair,” Zach said quietly. “He saved us.”

“No.” Warren was a little surprised to be able to talk. “It’s fair. I mean, I did save you, but-- The other part-- I did. I’m going to. Just--” He shook his head. “Letting her pull everything down is a hell of a lot easier than trying to do it myself.” Sitting was starting to feel like too much work, so he lay back on the floor and hoped that Will wouldn’t try to stomp on him. “This is-- I really fucking hate this. I want to make decisions the same way everyone else does.”

“In the dark and hoping for the best?” his mother said. “You knew what Gwen was the moment you saw her.”

“And I let her do it.” Warren stared at the ceiling. It was all much easier when he wasn’t looking at anyone. “I didn’t have to. I just thought--” He closed his eyes. “If I’m not deciding then what the hell is?” 

He really hoped there was an answer that didn’t involve higher powers because if a being with colossal cosmic power was telling Warren to do all of this terrible shit, Warren was going to have to find Heaven or wherever the power actually was and pull the place down. He had no idea how he could do that, but if the world had to get to the point that baby corpses were potentially better than the status quo before that power intervened--

How bad did the world have to be for the universe to decide that the Vilnrethdreh needed a Seer?

No one answered Warren’s questions. Instead, his mother told Magenta that she should sleep in Warren’s room with Layla. “I don’t think you’ll fit on the bed with her, but there’s a beanbag chair that might help make the floor more comfortable. Warren will sleep on the floor in my room. The rest of you can fight for the couch.”

Warren didn’t even try to move until everyone else had a chance at the bathroom. He just looked inside his head for something that might make him feel better.

Nobody-- not even Will-- tried to make Warren do anything else.

If Remembering was just another power, maybe Seeing was, too. Maybe there’d been Seers who never had to do anything but know when not to eat that leftover meatloaf. Warren wouldn’t have that option, but maybe nobody’d planned all of this and created Warren for a purpose. Maybe he’d just had shitty timing.

But, if someone else hadn’t planned it, Warren really was responsible for all of his own decisions. People were dying because _Warren_ thought the world had to be remade. He really wanted to put that off on someone else.

He wondered if Ethan thought he was God-Touched or if Ethan just knew history and biology and thought that Warren was what he was by chance. 

Zach very clearly thought God-Touched, but Ethan had said that Zach’s family was religious. If it gave Zach some comfort-- Warren put one arm across his face to block out the glare of the overhead light. If it gave Zach some comfort, Warren wouldn’t take that away by telling Zach that he doubted.

A woman starting to Remember exactly so many days into a pregnancy-- Warren supposed that looking at that as needing to be planned by a higher power might make more sense to a lot of people than putting it down to chance.

Later, when Warren was lying on the floor in his mother’s room and wishing it weren’t so unyielding, his mother said softly, “You are deciding, Warren. You’re just deciding with information that you don’t consciously have. Everybody else does that, too; everyone else has choices. Will figured Gwen out. It just took him longer, and he… did different things about it because he didn’t know what you knew. You’ll just…” She sighed. “I hoped we’d have more time for you because I Remember. Remembering, if it comes too early, your mind breaks. Seeing is like that, too.”

Warren thought he heard a thread of fear in the last two sentences.

His mother thought he was too young. 

He thought so, too, but, if his mind broke, it wouldn’t be from Seeing. It would be from not wanting to be the person his choices were going to make him into.

His mother’s voice became firmer. “You’ll have to learn how to be consciously aware of what you know. It should be close enough to Remembering that I can help.” She didn’t say anything for a while after that. Then, she said, “I’m sorry. You’re old enough now that I should have told you. Until you started talking about Gwen Grayson, I hoped I was wrong, worrying for nothing. I hoped the things I taught you would be for… for something else.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Warren said. It wasn’t, but it also wasn’t her fault. He didn’t want to be a Seer, but that part wasn’t anyone’s fault. “I… couldn’t have managed tonight if I’d known.” He had no idea how he was going to manage tomorrow.

Or the day after that.

Only exhaustion let Warren finally sleep.


End file.
